Synergy
Two chefs from two restaurants cook up one-of-a-kind dinner
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Chefs Crystal Maderia and Mathew Bilodea chat during an interview at Kismet restaurant in Montpelier. |
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Published: October 13, 2009
What happens when two talented chefs come together to create an intimate meal for only 10 diners? Crystal Maderia, chef/owner of Kismet, and Mathew Bilodea, head chef at The Black Door, both in Montpelier, decided to find out. On Monday evening, Oct. 19, they will serve the third in a series of three tasting dinners, each designed to highlight the flavors of the season.
The August meal celebrated summer with gazpacho, endive, and grilled lamb chops; September welcomed autumn with candied crab apples, handmade venison sausage, and cheese-stuffed pears. October's meal will presage winter with celeriac and chervil gratin, whole roasted onions, and lamb kidney.
Each of the seven (or more!) courses is paired with wine or beer and served in Kismet's candlelit dining room. Here, Maderia and Bilodea chat with Food and Dining correspondent Sylvia Fagin about their collaboration and cooking seasonally.
Whose idea was this dinner series?
Maderia: I initially asked Matthew if he would like to collaborate. We had spoken that we both needed something outside of our own kitchens.
Bilodea: It's a great opportunity to step outside the day-to-day. You're not looking to satisfy an entire town – you're looking to satisfy 10 people and that's much easier. And it's satisfying to be in contact with the customer, to not be so behind-the-scenes.
Maderia: This is a step in between having a private party with friends and having a formal dining room. It's what I fantasized about when I was younger and thinking about what it would be like to have my own restaurant. The collaboration is like other artist collaborations, like musicians who get to perform together.
Bilodea: The collaboration is one of the best parts about the whole affair. When you put together food, there's always certain ingredients that are going to bring the entire thing together. With two people working towards that, if I come up with an idea and it's amended by Crystal it's like, that was it, that was the one thing.
How do you develop the menus?
Maderia: We went through the seasons and loosely described what summer, fall, and winter menus meant to us. Like summer being light. Fall brings the beginning of wisps of smoke in the air. Winter is a coziness, a fullness, deep flavor.
Bilodea: Oftentimes, I'm reminded of food by the temperature, by the light outside, the color on the trees. For each of the menus I've written more than an outline, and then spent a day working with Crystal, shuffling things around, taking into consideration the paired alcohol, how it's going to go into the next course …
Maderia: Sourcing the ingredients plays a big part because we want it all to be local.
Bilodea: We definitely play favorites with ingredients, food that we enjoy and want to bring to a new light for someone at the table.
Maderia: For example, fried sage on the last menu was a hit. Sage is such a quintessential fall flavor, and being able to use that on the menu, the whole stem, and not stuffing it in the sausage or sprinkling it on something – stuff like that is fun.
Bilodea: We're trying to convey a vision where, as people consume what we've prepared, they equate it with the season.
What ingredients of this season really inspire you?
Bilodea: I look for longer cooking foods, more excuses to leave my oven on for a longer period of time. I usually go for larger cuts of meat – I've got a shoulder of lamb sitting on my counter right now. For the winter menu, the first thing I started with was celeriac, celery root, because it is my favorite winter vegetable. I don't know that there's a rival.
Maderia: Rutabaga is another great one.
After this dinner, what's next?
Maderia: We've decided to do another series called "Warmth in the Winter," and we're going to be focusing on three different regions of the world — Indonesia, Latin America and Northwestern Europe – and using what's locally available to reproduce celebratory meals from those regions.
Bilodea: I'll be heavily influenced by the origin, the history, the reason why it's special and part of a celebration dinner.
Maderia: We talked about finding something that is exquisite, unique and special, a once-a-year kind of thing for each of the menus. And we'll introduce the courses in a way that is conversation-stimulating, so we really fill the room with that feeling of warmth.
Crystal and Matthew, and Sylvia spoke for an hour; read more of their conversation at "Aar, Naam ~ Come, Eat," at sylviafagin.wordpress.com.
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